Virus shuts down county highway department network

The entire computer network of the Cook County Department of Highway and Transportation was shut down for nearly two weeks due to a virus infection.  The Department of Highway and Transportation maintains hundreds of miles of roads in the Chicago area.  It is believed that someone, possibly a county employee may have allowed a virus into their systems by surfing the internet or using a flash drive from home.  The virus caused files to be renamed.  Ricardo Lafosse, Cook County’s Chief Information Security Officer said the department was forced to immediately shut down the entire network until it cook be cleaned up.  The virus attacked about 200 computers.  It took five technicians working full time for 216 hours to clean up the network.

The virus attack affected about 200 computers.  It took 5 full time technicians 9 days to get the network cleaned up.